Teach English in PingchuAn Zhen - Zhangye Shi

How to teach productive skills.. The two kinds of productive skills are speaking and writing and both are used to communicate. When people are communicating, they do so because they have some communicative purpose, they want to say something, they want to listen and because they are interested in what is being said. These factors should be brought in when a teacher want to introduce a communicative activity. Accuracy based activities which is part of the study phase are concentrated on producing correct language. It is usually controlled to ensure accurate output. In this activity, language is controlled by the teacher which is drilling and/or it can be a guided activity like model dialogue and guided role-play where it's more creative and productive. Fluency based activities instead (which is part of the activate phase) are concentrated on allowing the students to experiment and be creative with the language. It is more concerned with the effectiveness and flow of the communication. Fluency based activities are created by the teacher but the content of the language isn't. Examples are discussions, information gap, debate, etc. The teacher must create the need and desire in the students to communicate to ensure success. But many students are reluctant to speak in a classroom for a number of reasons. It could be because they lack confidence, are shy, they're afraid of making mistakes, their previous learning experience weren't so encouraging, they feel intimidated by peers, they lack interest... That's why it's important for the teacher to encourage student interaction. For the teacher to overcome these problems, he/she should be able to create a comfortable atmosphere so students can enjoy communicating. For me, a teacher must be reachable and down to earth, because if a teacher is intimidating and aloof, that already creates a barrier between the students and the teacher and to learning. To encourage student interaction, the teacher must give some pair or group-work, plenty of controlled and guided activities before fluency activities, make speaking activities purposeful and with careful planning. There are certain activities where the teacher has to give students time to think about what they are going to say (rushing them already creates an uncomfortable atmosphere and has to be avoided. As for writing skills, a teacher has to consider the penmanship (it has to be at least readable as everyone has their own style of handwriting), the spelling (it can create major misunderstanding if not spelled correctly). As there are homophones and homographs in the English language (English is not a phonetic language), punctuation and layout (where to put punctuations and what kind to put in, and the layout especially if it's a business letter). To learn these, creative writing should be encouraged as the finished work can give them some boost of confidence and engages the students. When talking about engaging and encouraging students, I believe one of the most effective ways of engaging students is through games, as was mentioned in this unit, a game is an activity, it has rules, a goal and an element of fun. They can be either communicative or linguistic and it creates a sense of camaraderie among the students. Some of my favorite games are spelling bee, odd one out, the invisible man (similar to hangman), charades and tongue twisters.